


six years old

by jetplane



Series: Whumptober 2020 [11]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Character Development, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 06:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26967373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jetplane/pseuds/jetplane
Summary: A look into how Hotch's abusive father shaped him and what he did to save his son from the same fateprompt: crying (day 11)
Series: Whumptober 2020 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946050
Comments: 4
Kudos: 74
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	six years old

**Author's Note:**

> content warnings in endnote
> 
>  _piece by piece, he collected me  
>  up off the ground where you abandoned things  
> piece by piece, he filled the holes  
> that you burned in me at six years old_  
> \- "Piece by Piece" by Kelly Clarkson

Aaron was six years old the first time his father slapped him. He wasn’t sure exactly what triggered it - something to do with the TV, or maybe the dishwasher. But he could never forget the sound of his father’s open palm striking him across the cheek, or his shock when he realized what had happened. He spent an hour in the linen closet after that, crying until he eventually fell asleep. Later that night, his mother confronted her husband about what he had done. She came away from the conversation with a split lip and a black eye, but Aaron’s father didn’t lay a hand on him for almost a month after that.

Aaron was almost nine the first time he had to lie for his father. He’d accidentally knocked a glass of water onto his father’s newspaper, and the man had snapped Aaron’s arm in a fit of rage. _Tell anyone what happened and I’ll do the same to your brother_ , his father had warned, so he told the hospital staff that he’d fallen off his bike. On the way home, he bought his son an ice cream cone for his compliance. It was butter pecan, Aaron’s favorite, but he could barely swallow a bite around the lump in his throat. Hotch stopped eating butter pecan after that.

At fifteen, Hotch made the mistake of talking back to his father. For that transgression, he was pushed down a flight of stairs and spent three days in a coma. When he woke up, his mother was by his bedside with tear-stained cheeks and his father was gone without a trace. Aaron never dared to question the blessing, but when Sean asked where his father had gone, he saw the look in his mother’s eyes and knew what had happened.

Hotch was nineteen when Haley first brought up the possibility of having kids. He brushed her off then and every other time she asked for the next five years. When they were both twenty-four and Haley knew why her husband saw his father’s face in the mirror, Aaron told her that they couldn’t. He couldn’t inflict himself on a child.

Three days after the Bale bombing, when Aaron was thirty-three and grieving the loss of six of his colleagues, he found out that he was going to be a father. He locked himself in the bathroom, turned on the shower, and cried. When he ran out of tears, Hotch kissed his wife and said that he loved her. He put four domestically abusive unsubs in jail during Haley’s pregnancy and saw his child in every single one of their victims. But no matter how many monsters he put away, Aaron could never put away his own.

Jack was five months old the first time Aaron flew into a rage. Haley had gone to the store, and Hotch didn’t have a case for once. But he had to finish a report and his son wouldn’t stop crying and he just...couldn’t take it anymore. He screamed and screamed and screamed in a voice that he hadn’t heard since he was fifteen. After he realized what had happened, he fell to his knees sobbing in front of his son’s crib and begged for forgiveness. Haley came home to find her husband packing a suitcase. _Our son will be better off without me_ , he’d said. _Just let me go_. But instead, she drove him to a therapist and didn’t leave until they had a plan for exorcising every last one of Aaron’s demons. He learned about emotional regulation and coping strategies and breaking the cycle, but he never stopped wondering when his father would come back.

Jack was six years old when he borrowed one of his father's ties for Halloween and declared that, _I’m you, Daddy_. He smiled and hugged his son, and Jack never found out why his father had to hide his tears for the rest of the night. But Aaron never heard his father's voice again.

**Author's Note:**

> content warning: domestic abuse and child abuse (plus injuries associated with them)
> 
> Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment letting me know what you thought of this piece (or send them to my Tumblr, @jet-plane). And if you have any recommendations for future fics, I'm always open to new ideas!
> 
> _he'll never walk away  
>  he'll never break her heart  
> he'll take care of things, he'll love her  
> piece by piece, he restored my faith  
> that a man can be kind  
> and a father should be great_  
> 


End file.
